#Mobilegeddon day has come and past. And, while the world is still spinning and things might seem like normal outside, in the realm of the world wide web and mobile search, things are very much different.
So the fabled Apple Watch is mere days from hitting the shelves after what seems like years of rumours and speculation. While you seemingly can’t go online without being bombarded with some commentary about the new gadget, it appears that the jury is still very much out on wether it will be a genuine game-changer or not. Some commentators are hailing it as the next big thing, while others deride the concept as a gimmicky flash in the pan, only making headlines because it’s Apple’s latest poster child. Whether this iteration is the blockbuster product that some predict or not, it’s likely that it will kick the wearables product category onto the next level to some degree, in terms of mainstream awareness at least.
The nay-sayers deride it’s reliance on a parent smartphone, perceived limited functionality, or question marks over how users are meant to interact with it given it’s limited input methods. Also, it basically doesn’t do anything your smartphone can’t already do, so what’s the point, right? While up until recently I’ve been of the attitude that smartwatches will remain a pretty niche category until they can work independently of smartphones, a few articles that I’ve come across recently have forced me to re-evaluate the fundamental purpose of these devices. It seems that, while they’re not meant to replace your smartphone, they are designed to marginalise it. Wearables aren’t about adding a new layer of interaction with technology to your life, they’re about stripping it away. Removing the need for interaction to only when it is a necessity.
In a fantastic Wired piece this month on the development of the Apple Watch (notably called “iPhone Killer: The Secret History of the Apple Watch”), members of the Apple design team suggested that the main benefit of the device was the fact that it removes the need to constantly check your phone for notifications, prompting the user to only reach for their phone when deemed necessary by their watch. The whole point, in effect, is to make the iPhone redundant unless you’re carrying out a specific task or reacting to an important notification.
Along the way, the Apple team landed upon the Watch’s raison d’être. It came down to this: Your phone is ruining your life.
Our phones have become invasive. But what if you could engineer a reverse state of being? What if you could make a device that you wouldn’t — couldn’t — use for hours at a time? What if you could create a device that could filter out all the bullshit and instead only serve you truly important information?
The goal was to free people from their phones.
The smart-watch is meant to reduce our overall interaction with technology. Even the interactions you do have to make are to be reduced to their bare bones. Instead of engaging as you normally might with a notification or message, you can simply be presented with a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ style decision that’s super quick to make. Apple came up with a system called Quickboard that analyzes notifications and messages and suggests a handful of possible responses. If you are the one instigating the message, then sure, use your phone. But if you are the one reacting, this makes life that little bit simpler.
When your date asks if you want to do Mexican or Chinese for dinner, “Mexican” and “Chinese” automatically show up in the list — tap one and you’ve replied. You’re in the moment; just send it.
But in most cases, you’re not meant to have to do anything at all, wearables are meant to react to their environments and your habits. Christian Hernandez elaborates on this ‘Age of Context’ in this article based on Robert Scoble and Shel Israel’s book of the same name.
In the Age of Context personal data (ex: calendar and email, location and time) is integrated with publicly available data (ex: traffic data, pollution level) and app-level data (ex: Uber surge pricing, number of steps tracked by my FitBit) to intelligently drive me towards an action (ex: getting me to walk to my next meeting instead of ordering a car).
It is an age in which we, and the devices and sensors around us, generate massive reams of data and in which self-teaching algorithms drill into that data to derive insight and recommend or auto-generate an action … data needs to be compiled into succinct notifications and action enablers.
In this ‘Age of Context’, the Starbucks app, for example, will know that you usually get off the train at 8:50am and walk to their local store to order a Grande Latte. At 8:52 your smartwatch will know your routine, know that you’re around the corner from Starbucks, and simply generate an action-driver that says “Grande Latte – Order?” A few minutes later you can pick up your coffee, which has already been paid for as the system is integrated with your payment details. These services are already possible today, but will be made much easier to automate with the proliferation of wearable devices.
Another great Wired feature last month profiled the success of the Disney ‘MagicBand’, a wearable wristband that lets visitors to Disney World in Orlando ambiently carry out an absurd array of functions all by virtue of having this sensor on thier wrist.
The MagicBand replaces all of the details and hassles of paper once you touch-down in Orlando. Express users can board a park-bound shuttle, and check into the hotel. They don’t have to mind their luggage, because each piece gets tagged at your home airport, so that it can follow you to your hotel, then your room. Once you arrive at the park, there are no tickets to hand over. Just tap your MagicBand at the gate and swipe onto the rides you’ve already reserved. If you’ve opted in on the web, the MagicBand is the only thing you need.
It’s amazing how much friction Disney has engineered away: There’s no need to rent a car or waste time at the baggage carousel. You don’t need to carry cash, because the MagicBand is linked to your credit card. You don’t need to wait in long lines. You don’t even have to go to the trouble of taking out your wallet when your kid grabs a stuffed Olaf, looks up at you, and promises to be good if you’ll just let them have this one thing, please.
And that hit’s the nail on the head; devices like this are there to ‘engineer away friction’. A place like Disney World is the perfect control setting for technology like this that needs buy-in from both users and the multitude of places they come into contact with on a given day, so it can be difficult to imagine how this might work in the real world. But the MagicBand certainly gives us an idea of what it will be like in however many years, once the rest of our environment has caught up with the gadgets that we have in our pockets and on our wrists. Read the piece here.
So back to the Apple Watch, I certainly won’t be rushing out to buy one on launch day, I just don’t think there’ll be that many real world use cases out there for it for another year or two at least. But maybe it’s getting that bit easier to picture our cities a little more like Disney World in the not to distant future.
Recommended reading on wearables and the ‘Age of Context’
This has to be my quote of the week, coming from the Advertising Week Europe festival in London;
“Marketing has become like Tinder; in one second you decide to engage with that content or swipe it away, and that’s what brands have to get used to.”
It’s no surprise to anyone that marketing in the digital age has become a much more fragmented affair, with consumers bombarded with more and more marketing messages across a multitude of channels and a vast array of devices. We are becoming increasingly more fickle and hard to make an impression on – experts in evaluating what is, and isn’t, worth our attention, and ignoring the noise.
This sparked the above sentiment from Huib van Bockel, ex-Marketing Director of Red Bull UK, who suggested that brand marketing is becoming like the dating app Tinder, with people deciding almost instantly whether to engage with your brand or move on to the next one vying for your attention.
With it becoming so much harder these days to stand out in the crowd and get a viewer’s attention, it should encourage brands and marketers to re-evaluate how they might be perceived in such a small time frame, and what they can do to increase the likelihood of viewers ‘swiping right’ on their brand and starting a relationship. The type of relationship you can start in such a one-night-stand style environment is a story for another day!
This has been predicted for a while by some in the know, but it still comes as a bit of a left-field play. Today, Facebook announced that they are to facilitate mobile payments via their Messenger app. The implications here could be massive with it being the first of the big social networks to really make a stab at P2P mobile payments – social payments if you will.
Here’s how it works, the first time you send or receive money in Messenger, you’ll need to add a Visa or MasterCard debit card that’s been issued by a US bank to your account. Once you add a debit card, you can create a PIN to provide additional security the next time you send money. On iOS devices you can also enable Touch ID.
To send money:
To receive money:
For years, there was very little movement in this space, despite the technology being in place (my MSc. thesis from back in 2012 discusses this), but with Apple Pay gaining momentum, Samsung acquiring Loop Pay as a response, and now the social networks getting involved, [whisper it] 2015 could finally be the year that mobile payments start to become common place . The feature will be rolled out over the next couple of months in the US to begin with, but expect it to be launched worldwide in quick succession once people start using it.
With the Dubai Lynx Festival of Creativity over for another year, it gives all of us in attendance an opportunity to sit back and take stock of what it really means to work in advertising / marketing in an ever-changing media landscape. These days, there’s so much talk about smartphones and tablets, the battle between the first and second screen, the many different social networks and messaging apps flooding the scene, and yadda yadda yadda. Basically, the fragmentation of the way that users’ attention is occupied.
Because of this, there’s been a focus in the media and advertising world towards mastering the latest channels, usually through using a novel approach with the aim of grabbbing the viewers attention and being remembered. The problem with this is that, the more the channel takes precedent over the message and creative copy of a campaign, the less likely it is to make a meaningful impact on the audience. At the other end of the scale, some advertisers put minimal effort into differing digital channels and simply regurgitate the same idea across each. Too often, marketing in the digital age can fall flat. There is a constant struggle to find that balance between utilizing each channel differently and using great creative. But sometimes, there is a perfect harmony.
At the end of the day, whatever channel you use, you need to strike a cord with the viewer as well as taking advantage of that channel’s strengths. With that in mind, here are some of my favourite campaigns discussed at this year’s Dubai Lynx.
A.1. Steak Sauce “New Friend Requests” – Facebook
Facebook’s Fergus O’Hare championed the need to marry an understanding of the channel used with a great idea that not only leaves a lasting impression, but also conveys the message that the brand wants to get across. A.1. Steak Sauce in the US was aiming to create new use cases for it’s product by dropping the term ‘Steak’ from it’s name. Cue this great video that feeds off the channel it was distributed on (i.e. Facebook) to get that message across. This is my personal favourite.
Hewlett Packard “Bend The Rules” – Vine
David Shing (a.k.a. @Shingy, a.k.a the guy with the crazy hair) emphasised the opportunity in taking advantage of the restrictions of certain channels when telling your product’s story. If you can get your message across in only 6 seconds, then why take any longer? This user-generated campaign for HP’s new laptop / tablet hybrid wouldn’t work on any other platform but is great on Vine. It had some pretty hilarious results to boot.
Hunger Games “District Voices” Web Series – YouTube
Another great example of using the specific strengths of a channel was this campaign from YouTube to promote the latest ‘Hunger Games’ film. Google’s Vikram Tank discussed the phenomenon of YouTube celebrities that are actually more endearing to viewers than real celebritites. YouTube plucked them out of real life and dropped them into Panem, the fictional world that The Hunger Games is set in. The YouTube celebs would generate the same style of content they would normally, but this time in the context of the film’s backdrop.
Apple’s iPhone 6 “World Gallery” – Apple.com
With smartphones now completely ubiquitous, nearly everyone these days carries a pretty decent camera around with them 24/7 and we all like to think of ourselves as budding photographers. Rebecca Swift from Getty Images highlighted the recent Apple ‘World Gallery’ campaign that showcases the power of the latest iPhone’s camera by utilising user-generated content on their own site. Most of these shots are stunning.
I’m a Digital Strategist passionate about the intersection between technology and creative marketing. Last year I moved to London after 11 years living in Dubai.
